Walter Wuthmannhttp://www.dailynews.lk/taxonomy/term/5935/all
enThe real price of luxuryhttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/07/05/features/155903/real-price-luxury
<div class="field field-name-field-bot-strap field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Behind some of Sri Lanka’s nicest hotels is a bleak situation for workers:</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Features</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/07/04/z_p04-The-1.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/07/04/z_p04-The-1.jpg" title="Hotel workers protest for higher wages and better working conditions. (File photo)" class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;Hotel workers protest for higher wages and better working conditions. (File photo)&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/07/04/z_p04-The-1.jpg" width="800" height="353" alt="Hotel workers protest for higher wages and better working conditions. (File photo)" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Ruwan Gunaratne* has worked behind the bars of luxury hotels for nearly three decades. He started learning his trade in five-star hotels in Colombo, and then spent a few years in the Maldives before moving back home to his family.</p>
<p>Now, he is a shift captain at a seaside hotel just outside Colombo, mixing tropical cocktails and managing a small bar staff.</p>
<p>In all those years of work, Gunaratne has mastered English, and the recipes for hundreds of cocktails. But he doesn’t have much money to show for it.</p>
<p>When he started his recent job five years ago, he said he made about Rs. 10,500 a month as his base salary. But now, despite years of service and increases in the cost of living, he makes just over Rs. 18,000.</p>
<p>“I have three children and a wife to support,” Gunaratne said in a recent interview. “How is that enough?”</p>
<p>He said it can often feel like he lives “two lives.” On some nights, tourists run up bar tabs way over the amount he makes in a month.</p>
<p>Of course, Gunaratne and other hotel employees don’t only earn a basic salary. Each month they get a cut of the service charge the hotel collects.</p>
<p>And although the service charges can be good, sometimes as much as Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 30,000 in the peak months, they fluctuate with the season.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/07/04/z_p04-The-2.jpg" style="width: 326px; height: 420px; float: right;" width="326" height="420" />The steady money, and the amount from which the EPF and ETF retirement funds are calculated, is barely enough to live on, he said.</p>
<p>“Tourism is the number one industry in Sri Lanka,” Gunaratne said. “But there’s a dark side.”</p>
<p>Even as hotel owners and tourism promoters laud Sri Lanka’s growing hotel industry as a job creator, workers say that on the ground, the situation actually looks very different.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Luxury hotels, poor wages</strong></p>
<p>Colombo and Sri Lanka’s tourist hubs are changing. The new five-star Shangri-La Hotel rises above Galle Face Green, its workers in their neatly pressed uniforms greeting foreign guests</p>
<p>Everything from small guesthouses to international chains like the Marriott dot the coasts, accommodating the growing hoard of tourists flying into Sri Lanka.</p>
<p>Last year, that number climbed to over 2 million, according to the Tourism Development Authority, up from about 650,000 in 2010.</p>
<p>The industry supporting those guests employs over 150,000 people directly, and another 200,000 indirectly, government statistics show.</p>
<p>But the work conditions of the staff at these glamorous vacation spots can be deceiving, workers and advocates say.</p>
<p>“This is our problem, not just my problem,” Gunaratne said.</p>
<p>Inter Company Employees Union General Secretary Janaka Adikari, whose union represents workers in private hotels, agreed.</p>
<p>“These hotels and new chains are coming, but the situation of the employee in the hotel industry is a sad one,” he said.</p>
<p>“Even in the five-star hotels, the employees’ situation is very poor, they are suffering,” he added. “The only benefit there is that they are working in an air-conditioned environment.”</p>
<p>Adikari said the fundamental problem is the division between basic salaries and service charges. Under the current wages ordinance, hotels have to pay their employees above a minimum of Rs. 6,900 a month – a number so low that most hotels don’t even pay it anymore, he said.</p>
<p>A pretty standard starting wage, according to interviews with hotel workers, activists, and industry representatives, is Rs. 12,000.</p>
<p>Service charge varies by the season, peaking from November to February.</p>
<p>But the major issue with this situation is that EPF and ETF are calculated only from the basic salary. So even if someone makes Rs. 37,000 in a good month, only the basic salary of Rs. 12,000 is used to calculate the retirement contribution.</p>
<p>Because of this, employees often get caught in a “service charge trap,” said Shafeek Wahab, a long-time hotel industry consultant. They manage their salaries over their career, he explained, but when they retire, they find that they have basically nothing to live on.</p>
<p>Another issue is that banks only consider the basic salary when people apply for loans.</p>
<p>Employees often report having trouble applying for home and vehicle loans, as banks usually won’t account for service charge as a part of their income.</p>
<p>Wahab said most employers are very aware of the problems this payment structure creates. “The hoteliers are taking advantage of the employees,” Wahab said.</p>
<p>According to him, the owners don’t want to change the system “because it comes out of their bottom line.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>A different problem for the owners</strong></p>
<p>Some hotel owners say they are open to the idea of using the service charges to raise base salaries.</p>
<p>“To incorporate the service charge into the salary is an important task,” said The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President Sanath Ukwatte.</p>
<p>Ukwatte, who is also the Chairman of the Mount Lavinia Hotel Group, said that the association had also discussed a different mechanism to improve retirement benefits.</p>
<p>He said they are considering paying a quarter month’s salary as retirement benefits for each year of continuous service of permanent staff, from the 10th year onwards.</p>
<p>Yet even as workers protest their low wages, the hotel owners say they are facing another problem, and one that’s affecting the health of the whole industry: they can’t find enough workers to fill vacancies.</p>
<p>“This is the biggest challenge we face at present in hotel operations,” Ukwatte said.</p>
<p>He said that even though the Sri Lanka Hotel School and other private training schools were graduating people every year, the amount of new trained workers “is just not sufficient for the industry, even today.”</p>
<p>A compounding problem is that many of the young people who train in hotels in Sri Lanka immediately move to the Gulf states, where they can earn better salaries.</p>
<p>Gunaratne, the bar manager, said that as a shift captain, he trains between 20-26 people a year. According to him, most of them immediately move to the Middle East to work in the hotel sector there.</p>
<p>“This is an absolute pity,” Ukwatte said. “There are many jobs available here in Sri Lanka in the hospitality and the tourism sector, with opportunities to rise to senior management positions.”</p>
<p>“But people still go out to the MiddleEastern countries and seem happy to do the same job for years without any growth in their career,” he added.</p>
<p>Wahab said he believed the two realities – low wages and high vacancies – were related. “People don’t find the salary attractive,” he said. In places like Qatar and Dubai, the base pay is just better.</p>
<p>Wahab said raising the base pay in Sri Lanka could keep people back home. But he said the industry also needed to better market itself as providing long-term, stable careers with upward mobility.</p>
<p>“I think the industry is not making an effort to demonstrate to the public that it’s an industry that has a lot of opportunities,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Raising the base wage</strong></p>
<p>As far as the government is involved, the Labour Department’s Wages Board recently made a move to raise the minimum wage for the hotel and catering trades.</p>
<p>The new base wage of Grade I employee, meaning jobs like dishwashers, bar labourers, and cloak room attendants, would be Rs. 10,000 for the first year. The Wages Board also allots a Rs. 2,500-a-month budgetary relief allowance.</p>
<p>Asked how they had determined the new minimum wage in an interview, Labour Commissioner for the Labour Standards Division, Janaka Paranamana said the Wages Board had consulted employers and employees’ unions. “In the past it was too low,” he said. “Now the minimum wage is a living wage.”</p>
<p>But Janaka Adikari, the union secretary, disagreed. “It’s not sufficient, it’s not good,” he said. “At least a percentage of the service charge needs to be considered as a part of the salary.”</p>
<p>Until that happens, he said he believed the situation for hotel employees would not change. He said his union would continue “picketing and emphasising this issue to society and the government.”</p>
<p>For Gunaratne, back behind the bar, these political manoeuvres are not felt.</p>
<p>It’s now July, which means it’s the low season, and money is tight again. He said that on a recent afternoon, he only made Rs. 120 at the bar in tips.</p>
<p>Gunaratne said he notices the country changing, especially the influx of luxury hotels in Colombo.</p>
<p>“There are all these hotels,” he said. “But who would want to work there? I have two sons and one daughter,” he added. “I tell them not to work in hotels.”</p>
<p>(*Gunaratne requested a pseudonym for this article.)</p>
<p> </p>
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</script>Wed, 04 Jul 2018 14:08:57 +0000malinga155903 at http://www.dailynews.lkA bitter deal trying to get sugar out of Sri Lankan teas: Plantations Ministerhttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/29/features/155304/bitter-deal-trying-get-sugar-out-sri-lankan-teas-plantations-minister
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Features</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/28/z_p04-A-bitter-1.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/28/z_p04-A-bitter-1.jpg" title="Tea Estate" class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;Tea Estate&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/28/z_p04-A-bitter-1.jpg" width="800" height="383" alt="Tea Estate" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Tea Estate</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>When it comes to tea, Sri Lanka has a reputation to protect.</p>
<p>Even though the country is the fourth largest exporter of tea in the world, “Ceylon Tea” is some what the most expensive tea per kilo.</p>
<p>That means that any negative press about its quality could affect those high prices.</p>
<p>In February, news broke out that the Sri Lanka Tea Board had raided 80 factories. The regulators alleged that some factory owners were using sugar in the manufacturing process.</p>
<p>Sugar artificially darkens the tea leaves, making them look higher grade than they actually are.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/26/z_p04-A-bitter-2.jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 252px; float: left;" width="250" height="252" />Many factory owners were quick to deny that they had tampered with their tea.</p>
<p>But Minister of Plantation Industries Navin Dissanayake, said he was confident that the practice was happening, or that at least, it was until very recently.</p>
<p>“We hear this from the people inside factories, the people who work for them,” he said in an interview. “Sometimes (the owners)themselves boast about it.”</p>
<p>“It is kind of an open secret in the country,” he added.</p>
<p>Minister Dissanayake said the Tea Board and Tea Research Institute were currently verifying a new test to detect sugar tampering, that could be used as evidence in Court disputes.</p>
<p>According to Dissanayake, the practice had started about 15 years ago and reached its peak in last year.</p>
<p>“While everybody was practicing it, the authorities turned a blind eye to it,” he said. “But we’re not going to do that anymore and we are going to act tough about it,” the Minister said.</p>
<p>Yet, even as the government tried to get tough on sugar tampering, others say the issues with Sri Lanka’s tea industry actually had run much deeper.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Screening for quality:</strong></p>
<p>The battle to maintain high quality teas for export is an ongoing one. One of the checks on this process is the Analytics Lab at the Sri Lanka Tea Board, which is currently preparing to carry on with the sugar tests.</p>
<p>Every week, 4,000 randomly selected samples are taken from the tea auction in Colombo, to the lab at the SLTB headquarters on Galle Road, according to the Director of the Analytical Services Dr. Nishantha Jayathilake.</p>
<p>At the Tea Board, those samples are then tested first by the Tea Board’s tea tasters. If they flag the tea as suspicious, they send it to the labs. There, the sample could be tested against international standards, which are published by the International Organization for Standardization, such as bacteria, fibre content and pesticide presence.</p>
<p>“All the testing we do is according to (these) international standards,” Dr. Jayathilake said.</p>
<p>If the laboratories find a problem, they could trace the specific sample back to the seller at the auction, then back to the factory, even back to the garden where the leaf was grown, Dr. Jayathilake said. “It’s all vertically traceable.”</p>
<p>Making sure the tea meets different international standards is important to ensure, because different countries have different requirements for their tea. Japan, for example, only allows that 1 part per billion of the pesticide MCPA, be present in the teas it imports.</p>
<p>A bad batch of tea could jeopardize millions of dollars in sales.</p>
<p>Although most of the samples that come through the SLTB’s labs are collected internally, individual exporters could also bring their own product to be sampled to ensure quality. The SLTB also requires that all private sales done outside the Colombo tea auction, be tested before they are approved for export.</p>
<p>It’s also in these labs that they could test for sugar added during the manufacturing process.</p>
<p>Every tea, depending on its variety and elevation where it was grown, should have a baseline sugar content, Dr. Jayathilake explained.</p>
<p>Tea Board Chairman Lucille Wijewardena, compared that sugar baseline to the base temperature of the human body. For example, a body’s normal internal temperature should be about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.</p>
<p>“It’s like this with tea,” he said.</p>
<p>The problem with the first raid of 80 factories, Wijewardena said, was that the regulators had not been properly established those baselines. That’s how the accused owners challenged the validity of the test.</p>
<p>“When you do something for the first time, there could be little snags,” Wijewardena said.</p>
<p>He said the Tea Research Institute was currently working on establishing individual baselines for different teas and also verifying the lab test used to determine the sugar content.</p>
<p>“Anything over that baseline would be considered adulterated,” he said. Minister Dissanayake had warned that he would suspend the licenses of anyone caught, or even shut down the factories completely.</p>
<p>“After the warning it would stop,” Wijewardena said. “No one would take that risk.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>A larger problem looms</strong></p>
<p>Wijewardena said that all the media hype around sugar tampering had distracted from what he said was the real issue facing the tea industry.</p>
<p>Even though he and Minister Dissanayake agree that the practice was probably at one point widespread, with the threat of testing, it’s gone down “to only a handful of factories,” he said.</p>
<p>At the Colombo Tea Auction, where upwards of 97 percent of the tea grown in Sri Lanka is sold, brokers say that any sugar tampering hasn’t really been noticed by the consumers.</p>
<p>“(The issue) has been overblown in the media,” said Shane Amarasekara, a broker of Forbes and Walker Tea Brokers.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Yields declining due to not increasing tea growth</strong></p>
<p>The larger problem, according to Tea Board Chairman Wijewardena, is that yields are declining due to owners not increasing their tea growth.</p>
<p>Due to it, the area of tea-growing land is declining. The total extent of area under cultivation had fallen from almost 213 hectare in 2010, to 202 hectare in 2016, Plantation Ministry statistics show.</p>
<p>A tea bush has a life cycle of about 30 years, Wijewardena said. After that, its yields begin to decline. So the situation at present is that there are less plants and older ones.</p>
<p>In the past, Planters replaced small sections of their tea fields every year, he said.</p>
<p>But now, “they’re under the impression that it was too costly and the return on investment was too long,” he said. A young tea bush must be allowed to grow for three years before it could be picked.</p>
<p>However, “you can recover the investment in 4-5 years under these current prices,” Wijewardena argued. “But there is a lack of entrepreneurial spirit in the tea sector.”</p>
<p>The upshot of this is that production costs are rising, as tea companies are relying on older bushes that grow less high quality tea. That leads to more refuse in the manufacturing process.</p>
<p>“If you manufacture 100 kilos of tea, 15 are taken off as refuse, while the rest cannot be sold at the auctions,” Wijewardena said.</p>
<p>To compensate, owners are incentivised to cut corners – such as making the leaves look higher quality by adding sugar to the manufacturing process.</p>
<p>Wijewardena said he believed that adding new bushes to the island’s tea fields would lead to less waste and lower production costs.</p>
<p>“These are symptoms of the real issue,” he said. “If you address the root cause, other problems would be solved.”</p>
<p>The Tea Board has proposed a plan to require a small amount of the revenue from export sales be put into a fund that could be used by companies for financial assistance in replacing tea plants.</p>
<p>Anyone from small holders to regional plantation companies, could use the funds to rent or purchase backhoes and holing machines to for replanting.</p>
<p>The goal is to plant 1,000 hectare of tea a year for five years.</p>
<p>“For the next five years, we are going to address that issue as the single most important issue,” Wijewardena said.</p>
<p>In the short term, the Ministry hopes the threat of stings would keep factory owners from using sugar in the process.</p>
<p>Plantation Industries Minister Dissanayake said that the future of the industry depended on it.</p>
<p>“No other teas get this price,” he said. “So for us to ensure this price, we have to ensure that our quality is right.”</p>
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Thu, 28 Jun 2018 12:36:56 +0000malinga155304 at http://www.dailynews.lkTowards a more transparent governmenthttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/19/features/154327/towards-more-transparent-government
<div class="field field-name-field-bot-strap field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lawmakers get behind new evaluation bill</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Features</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-01.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-01.jpg" title="Towards a more transparent government" class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-01.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>When the news came out earlier this month that the last international operator at the Mattala International airport had stopped all of its services there, not many were surprised.</p>
<p>In the five years since it was built, Mattala has earned an infamous reputation as the “world’s emptiest airport.”</p>
<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" style="width: 200px"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-02.jpg" class="colorbox-load" rel="field_image_gallery"><img alt="" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/resize/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-02-170x193.jpg" style="width: 170px; height: 193px;" width="170" height="193" /></a><br />Minister Kabir Hashim.</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>At its peak, five airlines operated out of Mattala, and dropped out one by one due to high costs and frequent bird strikes.</p>
<p>When the final operator, Dubai-based Fly Dubai, pulled out on June 8, the news read more like a foregone conclusion.</p>
<p>One of the people who had long expected this outcome was Mylvaganam Thilakarajah, a Member of Parliament from the Nuwara Eliya District.</p>
<p>In fact, Thilakarajah saw the whole debacle as a case in point for a new system he and other MPs have been pushing in Parliament for the last few years: independent evaluations for public projects.</p>
<p>“If (the airport) had been evaluated before, the environmental people would have commented on this,” he said. “We would have learned about the threat of peacocks coming and hitting the wings.”</p>
<p>Thilakarajah and the other members of a group called the Sri Lanka Parliamentarians’ Forum for Evaluation have been lobbying for a national policy on evaluation.</p>
<p>They want an independent body, staffed by people with financial, technical, environmental, and cultural expertise, to evaluate all proposed projects before they commence, in order to give MPs a full picture of the risks and rewards associated with any given development.</p>
<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" style="width: 200px"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-03.jpg" class="colorbox-load" rel="field_image_gallery"><img alt="" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/resize/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-03-170x209.jpg" style="width: 170px; height: 209px;" width="170" height="209" /></a><br /><div>
<div>MP Mylvaganam Thilakarajah, member <span style="font-size: 0.923em;">of Sri Lanka Parliamentarians’ Forum for Evaluation.</span></div>
</div>
</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>“Every Parliament the world over should have an evaluation unit within it,” said Kabir Hashim, the Minister of Highways and Road Development, in a recent interview.</p>
<p>Hashim is the chair of the Global Parliamentarians’ Forum for Evaluation, as well as being a member of the Sri Lankan counterpart.</p>
<p>“We as a group have been putting pressure on the Speaker, on the Prime Minister,” Hashim said.</p>
<p>He said the future for evaluation looks brighter now. Sri Lanka will host an international evaluation conference in September, bringing specialists and Parliamentarians from about 100 other countries to discuss Parliamentary evaluation mechanisms.</p>
<p>Members of the Sri Lanka Parliamentarian’s Forum for Evaluation like Minister Hashim and MP Thilakarajah say that that international spotlight has applied much-needed pressure at home.</p>
<p>And with some key victories in recent months, they believe that Sri Lanka could finally be close to establishing an evaluation mechanism of its own.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>The case for evaluation</strong></p>
<p>If the Mattala Airport is a case in point for the need of evaluation, it is not alone.</p>
<p>Thilakarajah lists a variety of projects that he said he believes could’ve gone differently with a proper evaluation.</p>
<p>For example, there’s the cricket stadium in Dambulla.</p>
<p>The cricket board built the stadium there for the benefits of the dry-zone climate, Thilakarajah said.</p>
<p>“But after starting these cricket grounds, only now they are talking about the culture,” he said. “That is a Buddhist-based area. Now they are thinking about having alcohol there, dancing, cheer girls, now they’re thinking about that and avoiding having matches there.”</p>
<p>“So it doesn’t work properly, but they spent a lot to build it,” he added.</p>
<p>Or take the case of the disastrous Uma Oya project.</p>
<p>“They wanted to get the water to down south, that is Hambantota,” Thilakarajah said. “So now the Hambantota people get water, but there’s no water for Bandarawela.”</p>
<p>“All the houses in Bandarawela city, they all have cracks,” he added. “Once this channel was created, they don’t get water in their wells. Because of us.”</p>
<p>“(It’s) a completely man-made disaster,” he said.</p>
<p>Thilakarajah said that the Mattala, Dambulla, and Uma Oya projects all displayed the same problem.</p>
<p>“This is the issue that we have now: all the development proposals are political proposals,” he said.</p>
<p>“The government’s needs become the state’s needs, which means the party’s needs, which means political needs,” he said.“That’s how it gets deviated from the state to the party. So all the people’s money goes to political purposes.”</p>
<p>Thilakarajah and the members of the Sri Lanka Parliamentarians’ Forum for Evaluation think that if it were made mandatory to evaluate projects by a diverse and independent group of experts before they were finally approved, some of these ill-conceived developments could be stopped.</p>
<p>“If it is to come into practice, I think Sri Lanka’s development will be really changed,” he said.“Not at once, but in another 20-25 years, you can have the right path. Evaluation will give the right path in the development projects of our country.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Forming a national policy</strong></p>
<p>According to Minister Kabir Hashim, the political winds have shifted in favour of evaluation.</p>
<p>In 2013, as an Opposition MP, he proposed an evaluation mechanism for all government projects. It didn’t go anywhere.</p>
<p>But he said the fact that Sri Lanka is hosting the international evaluation conference in September brought attention to the issue at home.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Prime Minster Ranil Wickremesinghe said that he would bring forward a National Evaluation Policy in July.</p>
<p>He told media that the policy would provide accountability in the efficiency, effectiveness, value, and sustainability of public projects, and emphasize evaluation as a requirement of development planning.</p>
<p>“This is a great achievement,” Minister Hashim said in an interview.</p>
<p>The evaluation body should be independent, he said, like an audit group, but analyze projects from a variety of angles. That way, consequences like potential environmental damage or social impacts could be discovered and discussed beforehand.</p>
<p>Hashim said that USAID has agreed to contribute significant funding to the creation of an independent evaluation office within Parliament, as well as technical staff expertise.</p>
<p>The Parliamentarians’ Forum hopes to have the new policy in place before the conference in September.</p>
<p>But Hashim said even then there will be an opportunity for Sri Lanka to shape its “evaluation culture,” because representatives of countries that have utilized evaluation as a tool will be there.</p>
<p>“South Africa (has) used evaluation as one of their key tools,” he said. “We’ve also found that Malaysia has a very sophisticated monitoring and evaluation and performance-budgeting system and that has helped (it) to utilize funds to the maximum and have most of their projects implemented successfully.”</p>
<p>Nepal, which was also a founding country of the Global Parliamentarians’ Forum for Evaluation, adopted an evaluation policy of its own last year, Hashim said.</p>
<p>“So already in South Asia, because of the Global Parliamentarians’ Forum, we’ve been able to influence two Parliaments,” he said.</p>
<p>Hashim said he doesn’t expect opposition to the bill’s passage in Sri Lanka.</p>
<p>“At the moment we have the support from a cross-section of political parties, which includes the opposition as well, and we are happy that the stakeholders are varied across and we have everyone on board,” he said.</p>
<p>“Nobody in their right minds could be against something like this,” he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-04.jpg" class="colorbox-load" rel="field_image_gallery"><img alt="" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/resize/news/2018/06/18/z_p04-Towards-04-790x460.jpg" style="margin: 3px; width: 790px; height: 460px;" width="790" height="460" /></a><br />Mattala International Airport, an example of a development project gone wrong.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-19T01:00:00+05:30">Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - 01:00</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_3">
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Mon, 18 Jun 2018 11:34:01 +0000pushpika154327 at http://www.dailynews.lk Mandatory retirement age should be raised from 55 to 65 years:Eranhttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/14/local/153952/mandatory-retirement-age-should-be-raised-55-65-yearseran
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/13/z_p08-Mandatory.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/13/z_p08-Mandatory.jpg" title=" Mandatory retirement age should be raised from 55 to 65 years:Eran" class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/13/z_p08-Mandatory.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The mandatory retirement age should be raised from 55 to 65, State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>“I am a strong advocate that the mandatory retirement age be increased from 55 to 65 years,” he said. “I see absolutely no rationale at 55 years for somebody to quit and then go on a consultancy.”</p>
<p>He was speaking at an event marking the re-launch of the “Sunrise” Magazine, the official publication of the Sunrise Senior Foundation.</p>
<p>State Minister Wickramaratne noted that Sri Lanka had a unique problem among non-OECD countries, namely that its population was aging without a corresponding gain in income.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the working-age population is coming down, as is the Labour - Force participation rate of women, he said.</p>
<p>“(It’s) a bomb of a kind, a kind that is increasing all of time,” he added.</p>
<p>The current laws mandate that those working in the private sector retire at 55 years.</p>
<p>WHO Representative to Sri Lanka Dr. Razia Pendse argued that with longer life expectancies, it did not make sense to force people on to unfavourable consultant contracts after they turn 55.</p>
<p>“This is perhaps when your contribution to society could be at its peak,” she said.</p>
<p>State Minister Wickramaratne advocated for a re-thinking of old age.</p>
<p>“There is hope,” he said. “And this is just another phase of life.”</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-14T01:00:00+05:30">Thursday, June 14, 2018 - 01:00</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_4">
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Wed, 13 Jun 2018 17:47:57 +0000Nalaka.Fonseka153952 at http://www.dailynews.lk Sri Lanka inks five new MoUs with Finlandhttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/14/local/153849/sri-lanka-inks-five-new-mous-finland
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Representatives of the Sri Lankan and Finnish governments signed five new Memorandums of Understanding at a ceremony in Colombo on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The MoUs cover the sectors of vocational education, digitization, health, and energy.</p>
<p>“(These) are really connecting the best of Finland with the best of Sri Lanka,” said Finland Economic Affairs and Employment Deputy Minister Petri Peltonen, speaking at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel.</p>
<p>The memorandums were signed on the occasion of the Deputy Minister’s second official visit to Sri Lanka within six months. Peltonen said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s trip to Finland last year was the “driving force” behind the increased collaboration between the two countries.</p>
<p>“It’s great to see that those directions by the prime ministers are now bearing fruit at all levels,” he said.</p>
<p>Peltonen signed three MoUs with representatives of the Education Ministry, the Telecommunication, Digital Infrastructure and Foreign Employment Ministry, and the Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Ministry.</p>
<p>“From this piece of paper, we now need to act,” said Telecommunication Ministry Secretary Waduge Deshapriya. In addition to the government agreements, two companies from the 17-member delegation of Finnish businesses signed agreements with Sri Lankan counterparts on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Peltonen said that two other business-to-business agreements, on information technology and thermal power, were close to finalization.</p>
<p>Jonas Froberg, the South Asia Business Development Manager for the Finnish company Wartsila, said his company was talking to LTL Holdings about a project in Bangladesh. But he said they were also interested in investing in renewable energy projects in Sri Lanka. He said the island had “huge” but unrealized potential for solar, wind, and wave energy.</p>
<p>Investors should look to Sri Lanka “not just for political reasons, but for economic ones also,” he said.</p>
<p>“I think we are truly making progress,” said Deputy Minister Peltonen.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-14T01:00:00+05:30">Thursday, June 14, 2018 - 01:00</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_5">
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Wed, 13 Jun 2018 10:54:37 +0000Nalaka.Fonseka153849 at http://www.dailynews.lkContest to fete public officialshttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/13/local/153797/contest-fete-public-officials
<div class="field field-name-field-bot-strap field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">TISL LAUNCHES ‘INTEGRITY IDOL’:</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/12/z_p01-CONTEST.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/12/z_p01-CONTEST.jpg" title="Contest to fete public officials" class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/12/z_p01-CONTEST.jpg" width="800" height="363" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Transparency International Sri Lanka announced Tuesday, that it was launching a new islandwide “Integrity Idol” contest to identify and felicitate exemplary public officials.</p>
<p>“(This) is a very unique public award to recognise integrity in public service,” TISL Executive Director Asoka Obeyesekere said, speaking at a press conference at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute yesterday.</p>
<p>“The key concept here is to ‘name and fame’ public officers,” he said. “Because we wish to recognize those public officers who have shown integrity and honesty sometimes in very challenging and difficult conditions.”</p>
<p>Obeyesekere asked the public to nominate people they knew at any level of government, from schoolteachers to customs officers, whom they believed performed their role with honesty and integrity. “We very frequently hear negative news around the public service,” he said. “But I think the one thing we can all agree on is that there are also many positive examples of people working in the public service that is often unrecognized.”</p>
<p>Islandwide voting is now open, and nominations can be made until 31 July. Five finalists will then be chosen by a panel of judges, Obeyesekere said, and then the public will select a winner through SMS voting.</p>
<p>“The public sector must have a high level of integrity,” retired Deputy Auditor General and one of the contest’s judges M.D.A. Harold said. “This is a good effort and good arrangement to allow the public to appreciate the integrity of public servants,” he said.</p>
<p>Anyone wishing to make a nomination can call TISL at 0711 295295 or 0761 178844.</p>
<p>Nomination forms in all three languages can also be downloaded online at <a href="http://www.integrityidol.lk">www.integrityidol.lk</a>, or collected at TISL’s head office at 5/1 Elibank Road Colombo 5 or its legal aid centres in Matara and Vavuniya.</p>
<p>After the panel selects five finalists, their stories will be filmed and shown on TV and social media. People can then vote for their favourite public official over SMS.</p>
<p>The final award will be given in October.</p>
<p>The Integrity Idol is organised with the Accountablity Lab, which has already carried out similar campaigns in Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, and Nigeria.</p>
<p> </p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-13T01:05:00+05:30">Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - 01:05</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_6">
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Tue, 12 Jun 2018 17:12:00 +0000malinga153797 at http://www.dailynews.lkSri Lankan fishermen held in Seychelleshttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/12/local/153610/sri-lankan-fishermen-held-seychelles
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Six Sri Lankan fishermen have been detained in Seychelles, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Monday.</p>
<p>The crew was intercepted over the weekend by the Seychelles Coast Guard.</p>
<p>They have since been produced before court and were remanded pending further investigation by the Seychelles authorities, a senior ministry source said. They said the Sri Lankan High Commission in Seychelles was in touch with the crew members and local authorities.</p>
<p>Seychelles is an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean with a large exclusive economic zone.</p>
<p>Two other Sri Lankan crew members were detained last year on suspicion of illegal fishing, according to the Seychelles Coast Guard. </p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-12T01:00:00+05:30">Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - 01:00</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_7">
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Mon, 11 Jun 2018 12:22:42 +0000pushpika153610 at http://www.dailynews.lkNegombo gets new Rs 20 bn wastewater management system http://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/09/local/153414/negombo-gets-new-rs-20-bn-wastewater-management-system
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/08/z_p02-Negombo.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/08/z_p02-Negombo.jpg" title="City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem inaugurating the project. French Ambassador Jean-Marin Schuh and EU Embassador Tung-Lai Margue and National Water Supply and Drainage Board Chairman Alahudeen Ansar and area MPs look on. " class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem inaugurating the project. French Ambassador Jean-Marin Schuh and EU Embassador Tung-Lai Margue and National Water Supply and Drainage Board Chairman Alahudeen Ansar and area MPs look on. &quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/08/z_p02-Negombo.jpg" width="800" height="463" alt="City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem inaugurating the project. French Ambassador Jean-Marin Schuh and EU Embassador Tung-Lai Margue and National Water Supply and Drainage Board Chairman Alahudeen Ansar and area MPs look on. " title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem inaugurating the project. French Ambassador Jean-Marin Schuh and EU Embassador Tung-Lai Margue and National Water Supply and Drainage Board Chairman Alahudeen Ansar and area MPs look on. </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Work will soon commence on a major wastewater management system for Negombo, the first of its kind in the area.</p>
<p>The Rs.20 billion project will take four years to build, and is funded with support from the European Union and the French Agency for Development.</p>
<p>Dignitaries from the donor agencies and officials from the Ministry of City Planning and Water Supply announced the project at a ceremonial launch at Negombo Beach on Friday.</p>
<p>“Sri Lanka is known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean,” said AFD Country Director Martin Parent. But “there is a challenge in preserving its fragile coastal environment,” he added.</p>
<p>Wastewater management is key to conservation, he said, “and it is very rare around the world to see developing countries invest in this sector.”</p>
<p>National Water Supply and Drainage Board Chairman Alahudeen Ansar said the Negombo lagoon and coastline has been consistently polluted by municipal waste over time, largely the result of residents using individual septic systems, which can overflow.</p>
<p>The new project, which includes 70 km of pipeline and nine pumping stations, would serve about 75,000 people, he said.</p>
<p>“The European Union is committed to supporting international ocean governments, (and) lays emphasis on managing and using the world’s oceans and their resources in ways the keep our oceans healthy, productive, safe, secure and resilient,” said EU Embassador Tung-Lai Margue.</p>
<p>He said the EU contributed almost six million Euros to the project.</p>
<p>French Ambassador Jean-Marin Schuh said Sri Lanka was home to incredible biodiversity and marine resources, which needed to be conserved. “France has a lot to share with Sri Lanka,” he said. City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem thanked the international agencies for their financial support.</p>
<p>“One of the main ideas in providing this infrastructure is to preserve our beautiful landscape and leave the water resources for the posterity of successive generations,” he said.</p>
<p>“Negombo lagoon and the ocean has progressively been subjected to heavy pollution because non-availability of proper a waste disposal system in this important city,” he added.</p>
<p>The new wastewater treatment system would not only help preserve marine resources, but also protect human health by securing safe drinking water and a clean environment, he argued.</p>
<p>He said several other cities were earmarked for wastewater systems, such as Galle and Unawatuna. “With the increased urbanization we are experiencing, we are faced with this challenge of our groundwater resources getting polluted and the beauty of the environment getting disturbed,” he said.</p>
<p> </p>
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Fri, 08 Jun 2018 17:34:43 +0000malinga153414 at http://www.dailynews.lkFM probing detention of Lankans in Italyhttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/08/local/153346/fm-probing-detention-lankans-italy
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The Foreign Ministry is inquiring into the alleged detainment of six Sri Lankans on charges of human trafficking in Italy, a senior ministry source said Thursday.</p>
<p>According to some Italian media reports, authorities arrested six Sri Lankans in Sicily for their alleged role in a human smuggling operation. Senior Director General of the Consular Division S. S. Ganegama Arachchi said the Foreign Ministry had sent inquiries about the arrests to their embassy in Rome with a request for more details.</p>
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Thu, 07 Jun 2018 17:35:44 +0000malinga153346 at http://www.dailynews.lkFake Lankan bomber sentenced to 12 years in Australiahttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/08/local/153339/fake-lankan-bomber-sentenced-12-years-australia
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/07/z_p01-Fake.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/07/z_p01-Fake.jpg" title="Fake Lankan bomber sentenced to 12 years in Australia" class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/07/z_p01-Fake.jpg" width="800" height="406" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A Sri Lankan man had been sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in Australia for threatening to detonate a fake bomb on a Malaysian Airlines flight last year.</p>
<p>An Australian judge said that Manodh Marks, 26, ran down the aisles with electronic equipment saying he was going to blow up the plane as it took off from Melbourne. Marks pleaded guilty on Thursday for trying to take control of an aircraft, according to the Associated Press.</p>
<p>His defense argued that he was affected by drugs at the time.</p>
<p>Around 200 crew and passengers were on board when Marks threatened to blow up the aircraft with a portable speaker last May. The pilot quickly turned the plane around, and Marks was eventually restrained by passengers, who tied him up with belts.</p>
<p>Marks could be deported back to Sri Lanka after serving at least nine years of his sentence, the AP reported. He was in Australia on a student visa studying the hospitality industry.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-08T01:06:00+05:30">Friday, June 8, 2018 - 01:06</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_10">
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Thu, 07 Jun 2018 17:26:16 +0000malinga153339 at http://www.dailynews.lkCaptain’s Garden Kovilhttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/06/features/153035/captain%E2%80%99s-garden-kovil
<div class="field field-name-field-bot-strap field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A relic of Colombo</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Features</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/05/z_p04-Captain-01.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/05/z_p04-Captain-01.jpg" title="Devotees gather for a morning pooja." class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;Devotees gather for a morning pooja.&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/05/z_p04-Captain-01.jpg" width="800" height="463" alt="Devotees gather for a morning pooja." title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Devotees gather for a morning pooja.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>It’s an iconic sight: the large gopuram of the Sri Kailawasanathan Swami Devasthanam Kovil towering above the train tracks in Maradana, greeting passengers as they travel to and from Colombo.</p>
<p>The temple, in its modern form, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.</p>
<p>But the place of worship is actually much older. And few know the history of the city’s oldest and largest temple to Shiva.</p>
<p>“This temple was established by our community, the Chetti community, businessmen who came to Sri Lanka from India,” said S. Mahendran Chettiyar, one of the kovil’s trustees, in a recent interview.</p>
<p>According to an old deed, a shrine to Shiva has existed at the current site since 1783, Mahendran said. “But it could have started even before then, we can’t say,” he added.</p>
<p>Regardless, for more than two centuries, the kovil has been a place of worship for not just the Chetti community, but for Hindus from around Colombo and the region. Buddhists who want to make offerings to Lord Shiva or other gods at the temple’s surrounding smaller shrines, come here too.</p>
<p>Every year, the Defence Forces come to the kovil for poojas, the temple’s trustees said, and it is a common place for presidents and prime ministers to seek blessings. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe even came on a recent Friday evening, Mahendran said.</p>
<p>The story of just how a humble shrine grew into prominence is an interesting one.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Island temple</strong></p>
<p>The Sri Kailawasanathan Kovil goes by many names, but they are all connected. Its official name refers to Mount Kailash, the mountain home of Lord Shiva in Hindu cosmology.</p>
<p>Colloquially, it’s called the Theevu Kovil in Tamil, meaning the ‘island’ temple. It’s also known by an English name, the Captain’s Garden Kovil.</p>
<p>In the past, the little rise of land the temple sits on used to be an island. Before Colombo’s wetlands were carved into canals and lakes, the area that now holds two corridors of train tracks was under water.</p>
<p>The small island was a place for sea captains to take rest, and N. Dharmaseelan Chettiyar, another temple trustee, said the Chetti community had set up some small shops there along with a shrine.</p>
<p>When the water was eventually diverted, and the British colonizers built train tracks in its place, the Shiva Temple remained.</p>
<p>Today, the temple grounds still feel like an island, sheltered from the traffic and noise of the city. Birds chirp in the surrounding trees, and devotional music wafts from the temple’s interior.</p>
<p>Apart from the occasional passing train, the kovil feels a world away from Colombo.</p>
<p>“This is a very isolated place. That’s why people love to come,” said Mahendran. “They can pray peacefully.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>The gopuram</strong></p>
<p>Not much detail is known about the temple’s early days. The next major development in its history was in 1935, Dharmaseelan said, when the temple trustees decided to build a gopuram.</p>
<p>“During that period my grandfather was on the board,” he said.</p>
<p>But for lack of funds or manpower, it was never fully constructed. By 1988, it was only partially built. A new board of trustees convened, including Mahendran and Dharmaseelan, to finish the job.</p>
<p>But still it was not an easy task.</p>
<p>“We couldn’t finish it…we had a lot of problems,” said Mahendran.</p>
<p>Because of the ongoing civil war, it was hard to secure visas for the dozen-or-so sculptors who needed to come from India to make the intricate statues that decorate the temple’s gopuram.</p>
<p>When they did come, one of them died. “We had a lot of problems,” Mahendran repeated.</p>
<p>They finally completed the gopuram in 1994. Its layers of delicately crafted, primary-coloured statues are now a Colombo landmark.</p>
<p>Last year, they renovated the smaller temple to Ganesh alongside the main one. Its gopuram stands today in bright gold, red, green, and blue, just below its larger neighbour.</p>
<p>The expanded temple complex now draws hundreds of devotees a week. Tourists often wander in for pictures.</p>
<p>The temple is undoubtedly a hefty centre of Colombo’s spiritual life.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>The future</strong></p>
<p>The days of the small shrine on an island are gone.</p>
<p>But as for the descendants of its founders, “We still administrate the temple,” Dharmaseelan said.</p>
<p>The five trustees of the Sri Kailawasanathan Swami Devasthanam Kovil meet every Saturday evening to plan events like the annual Mahotsavam festival and renovations to the temple’s interior and exterior.</p>
<p>Renovations must be made every 12 years, they said, to combat water damage, dirt, and fading paint. A 12-year timetable is also auspicious, because it aligns with the Hindu cosmic cycle.</p>
<p>But the current trustees cannot do the job forever. Dharmaseelan is now apprenticing his 30-year-old son Sudan in the ways of temple administration.</p>
<p>He said passing the responsibility through family is the best way to assure future leaders are devoted to the preservation of the temple. “Because we know our children,” he said.</p>
<p>Sudan grew up going to the kovil, learning the stories and ways to worship Lord Shiva and the gods.</p>
<p>His father Dharmaseelan and other mentor, Mahendran, told the story of Shiva and the hunter, which is beautifully depicted on the temple’s ceiling, as one of the greatest teachings of the religion.</p>
<p>As the story goes, there once was a forest shrine tended to by a devout Brahmin, who was a vegetarian and worshiped Shiva in all the correct ways. In the same forest, there was a hunter, who every day would offer part of his kill to the Shiva lingam at the shrine.</p>
<p>One day, to test the hunter’s devotion, Lord Shiva made one of his eyes on the lingam bleed. The hunter took out his own eye with an arrow and placed it over the lingam’s, and the bleeding stopped.</p>
<p>Then, the other eye started bleeding. The hunter, knowing he would be blind after taking out his second eye, placed his big toe on the spot to mark its place, and began removing his second eye. Shiva then restored the hunter’s vision in honour of his sacrifice.</p>
<p>The Brahmin, watching from afar, saw that it was true devotion that really mattered, not just the actions and orthodoxy of rituals.</p>
<p>“This is the best story of Shiva,” said Mahendran. “Because it shows sacrifice, and love. Whatever I eat, I give to you.”</p>
<p>The trustees hope the next generation will take care of the temple so that it can live on into the next centuries.</p>
<p>Asked if he will be a trustee his whole life, Sudan, Dharmaseelan’s son replied: “We don’t know.”</p>
<p>“But that’s the idea,” he added. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/05/z_p04-Captain-02.jpg" style="width: 790px; height: 674px; margin: 3px;" width="790" height="674" /></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-06T01:00:00+05:30">Wednesday, June 6, 2018 - 01:00</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_11">
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Tue, 05 Jun 2018 13:16:56 +0000pushpika153035 at http://www.dailynews.lkRTI commission opposed to certain clauseshttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/06/02/local/152735/rti-commission-opposed-certain-clauses
<div class="field field-name-field-top-strap field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">National Audit Bill:</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot-strap field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Argues it violates spirit of RTI Act:</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/01/Z_p01-RTI.jpg"><a href="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/01/Z_p01-RTI.jpg" title="RTI commission opposed to certain clauses" class="colorbox" data-colorbox-gallery="field_image_gallery-BPV5Zb8OwAU" data-cbox-img-attrs="{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.dailynews.lk/sites/default/files/news/2018/06/01/Z_p01-RTI.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The Right to Information Commission on Friday said it was opposed to certain clauses in the proposed National Audit Bill, arguing it violated the spirit of the RTI Act.</p>
<p>Their statement follows a similar challenge to the law by the advocacy group Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) in April, who alleged before the Supreme Court that some language in the Draft Bill attempts to skirt requirements of the country’s RTI law.</p>
<p>Draft laws “that (propose) to place selected state offices on an advantaged position as against others and enforce general prohibitions on citizens seeking information … raise legitimate concerns as to whether this will create exclusive domains of privileges for those offices,” the commissioners wrote.</p>
<p>They took issue with a clause of the proposed Audit Bill that gives wide range for any person working for the Audit Service Commission, the Auditor General, or any office under the Audit Act to refuse requests for information until an official report is placed before Parliament.</p>
<p>Only a request by Parliament or any order of court can exempt this direction.</p>
<p>The commissioners said they were concerned that “a chilling effect” would be created by this general prohibition.</p>
<p>Such a blanket exemption is “contrary to the letter and spirit of the RTI Act,” they said.</p>
<p>In an interview, Transparency International RTI Manager Sankhitha Gunaratne said that the highlighted clauses in the National Audit Bill, as well as information exemptions in the Office of Missing Persons Act, amounted to Parliament “chipping away” at the framework set up under the country’s Right to Information Law.</p>
<p>She added that the draft Reparations Bill, accessed through an RTI request, contains a similar exemption. The Supreme Court, in its response to Transparency International, said it did not find the proposed exemptions in the National Audit Bill unconstitutional.</p>
<p>“As the Bill now moves through Parliament, the RTI Commission warned that “the precedent set by shielding some offices and individuals from RTI in this manner will dilute the victories gained for Sri Lankans through the enactment of the globally recognized law.”</p>
<p>“The exemptions would also “discourage largely positive tendencies evidenced so far by Public Authorities in dismantling a decades-old culture of secrecy and denial of legitimate information,” they added.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-06-02T01:10:00+05:30">Saturday, June 2, 2018 - 01:10</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_12">
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Fri, 01 Jun 2018 17:31:21 +0000malinga152735 at http://www.dailynews.lkActivists in Colombo protest Tamil Nadu police killingshttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/05/31/local/152541/activists-colombo-protest-tamil-nadu-police-killings
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>More than 40 people protested outside the Indian High Commission in Colombo Wednesday, demanding justice for the protesters allegedly killed by Indian Police last week.</p>
<p>“We need justice for those who were massacred,” said M. Mayuran, of the Mass Movement for Social Justice, the coalition that organized the demonstration.</p>
<p>“We also need to send the message that we are in solidarity with them,” he added. Residents and environmentalists have long demanded the closure of the Sterlite copper plant in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, arguing that it was polluting the surrounding environment. On their 100th day of protest, thousands of people marched towards a government office. Police opened fire, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100.</p>
<p>“Through our faith, we have no other option but to protest,” he added.</p>
<p>The activists in Colombo held signs in English, Sinhala, Tamil, and Hindi, opposing the copper plant and demanding that the Indian Government deliver justice to the victims.</p>
<p>They alleged that the Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sided with Vedanta Resources, the company that controls the copper plant, over its people.</p>
<p>“Vedanta is a sacred word for us,” said Francis D’Almeida, of Madampitiya, referring to its Sanskrit meaning. “And (this company) is using that to kill people and pollute.”</p>
<p>D’Almeida said his family originally came to Sri Lanka from Thoothukudi to work for the British Colonial Government.</p>
<p>“We have a good community sense,” he said, saying that similar protests would be organized by diaspora groups around the world.</p>
<p>The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on Monday, said that the copper plant would be permanently shut down.</p>
<p>As the Indian High Commission was closed on Wednesday afternoon, the protesters handed over a declaration, signed by the attendees, to Commission representatives.</p>
<p>“The people of Sri Lanka stand with Thoothukudi against the corporate terror of Vedanta and the Modi Government,” it read.</p>
<p> </p>
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Wed, 30 May 2018 17:56:05 +0000malinga152541 at http://www.dailynews.lkBASL pledges legal aid to flood victimshttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/05/31/local/152504/basl-pledges-legal-aid-flood-victims
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Anybody who has lost their valuable documents in the recent floods should reach out to the Bar Association of Sri Lanka for assistance, BASL President U.R. De Silva said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>“If they have lost their valuable documents, or they can’t use them, they can inform the Bar Association about their difficulties, and then we would be able to prepare those documents with the help of government institutions,” he said in an interview with the Daily News.</p>
<p>For example, De Silva said that the Bar Association could help secure new copies of damaged or lost birth certificates, marriage certificates, and identity cards.</p>
<p>“We want to be able to give some sort of relief,” he said.</p>
<p>BASL also gave legal aid after the floods in 2016, De Silva added. “On that basis we are going to do it again.”</p>
<p>“Our legal aid commission lawyers are very helpful,” he added.</p>
<p>He urged anybody who needs help to contact the BASL at 011 244 7134, 011 233 1697, or to write a letter to them addressed to the BASL Secretariat, No.153, Mihindu Mawatha, Colombo 12.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date-publishing field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2018-05-31T01:00:00+05:30">Thursday, May 31, 2018 - 01:00</span></div></div></div><span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_target addtoany_list" id="da2a_14">
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Wed, 30 May 2018 13:17:03 +0000malinga152504 at http://www.dailynews.lkTwelve migrant workers to be repatriatedhttp://www.dailynews.lk/2018/05/30/local/152438/twelve-migrant-workers-be-repatriated
<div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/local" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Local</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-byline field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/line/walter-wuthmann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Walter Wuthmann</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-articletags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/print-edition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Print Edition</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Twelve Sri Lankan migrant workers who were stuck in Somaliland because of a labour dispute will be repatriated, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.</p>
<p>The Ministry said the workers would return to Sri Lanka within the week. Sri Lanka does not have a consulate or diplomatic presence in Somaliland. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it worked with the Sri Lankan Embassy in Addis Ababa and the International Organization for Migration in Hargeisa to “negotiate with the employer concerned in Somaliland to resolve the labour dispute, secure the release of the Sri Lankans, and make arrangements for their safe return.” The Foreign Ministry would not comment on the nature of the labour dispute.</p>
<p>The IOM has helped “thousands” of Sri Lankans return from destination or transit countries around the world, according to their organisational literature.</p>
<p>“The Government of Sri Lanka acknowledges with gratitude the role of the IOM in providing much needed assistance to the Government and people of Sri Lanka on this occasion as well as in the past in many similar situations,” the Foreign Ministry said in a prepared statement.</p>
<p>They also urged all Sri Lankans to be cautious in moving to “high-risk” territories for work where Sri Lanka does not have resident diplomatic and consular presence. </p>
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Tue, 29 May 2018 18:06:11 +0000pushpika152438 at http://www.dailynews.lk